What would you do?! Tractor trade and a generator question

[Soundguy]

Tractor engines are designed to run wide open for thousands of hours, so it won't hurt them at all.

For some reason.. some people fail to understand that, and somehow think that they are ruining their tractor engine running it at that speed for a genny for a few hours.. yet have no problem mowing form dark thirty till dark thirty only stopping to add fuel and take a whizz / eat a sandwhich.. ??? always makes me wonder... a load on the pto is a load on the pto.. etc.

soundguy

 

[BethesdaEC]

For some reason.. some people fail to understand that, and somehow think that they are ruining their tractor engine running it at that speed for a genny for a few hours.. yet have no problem mowing form dark thirty till dark thirty only stopping to add fuel and take a whizz / eat a sandwhich.. ??? always makes me wonder... a load on the pto is a load on the pto.. etc.

soundguy

I don't get it either. There are people who talk about renting equipment instead of putting the hours on their machines. I dropped a lot of money on my machine, but I expect to see a return on investment, not a pretty tractor sitting in a garage. If I leave my tractor in the rain, does that count as washing it?

 

[RoyJackson]

If I leave my tractor in the rain, does that count as washing it?

Does for me!!!

I guess a lot of folks might think running in one place (as a stationary power source) could hurt the engine.
Since some (if not most) of the Yanmar engines used in Deere CUTs are industrial engines and designed for stationary use, I'm not sure why some folks wouldn't use them for short term (a day or so) power generation.

I've knocked around the idea of a PTO generator for a couple years now...but we've never lost power for more then a day...guess I can't really justify it (yet).

 

[Soundguy]

hope you don't have to justify it..

soundguy

 

[RoyJackson]

hope you don't have to justify it..

soundguy

Me too...

 

[kuboman]

Yep me too. Can't figure the reluctance to run a pto generator. It is about the easiest work an engine can do, nice constant rpm with a relatively constant load running at a nice constant temperature. Eazy cheezy for an engine.

 

[Soundguy]

not to mention a tractor engine is at it's sweet spot for turning pto rpm.. win-win situation.. and yer running gear ain't even causing a parasitic load, or wearing out... and if you though cooling was an issue..set a garden hose on trickle, and lay it on top of radiator to trickle down fins and boil off, thus removing LOTS of extra heat..


soundguy

 

[BethesdaEC]

not to mention a tractor engine is at it's sweet spot for turning pto rpm.. win-win situation.. and yer running gear ain't even causing a parasitic load, or wearing out... and if you though cooling was an issue..set a garden hose on trickle, and lay it on top of radiator to trickle down fins and boil off, thus removing LOTS of extra heat..


soundguy

These tractors are designed to work in Arizona in August all day at wide open throttle, they have plenty of cooling capacity.

 

[nunyabinis]

Let me throw $.02 into the ring:

I purchased a very nice, liquid cooled, 6500 watt Honda generator about 15 years ago. I've had to use it twice for power outages. I used to lose power all the time but shortly after I bought the generator the power company rearranged some power lines and I was suddenly no longer at the end of my particular transmission line. Anyway, it is a HUGE pain to fire up the generator every now and then just to exercise it. I used to be diligent and would start it up twice a year to let it come up to operating temperature, but, I haven't even touched the thing in about 5 years now. Other stuff is piled on top of it and it's crammed into a corner of the barn that isn't easy to get to. I figure that the next time I need it I'll have to jump through some hoops to get it fired up. The last couple times I did fire it up I had to jump start it since the battery has been dead for a LONG time. Recently I've been thinking very seriously about selling it and getting a PTO generator.

IIRC, the last time I actually used it was when the wife bought a whole bunch of flower bulbs. The generator is on wheels so I pulled it all over the yard to power a half-inch drill with a bulb-auger attachment to plant hundreds of flower bulbs.*



* I can hear my dear old pappy now, "Son, I don't believe I woulda told that one."



.

 

[BethesdaEC]

Let me throw $.02 into the ring:

I purchased a very nice, liquid cooled, 6500 watt Honda generator about 15 years ago. I've had to use it twice for power outages. I used to lose power all the time but shortly after I bought the generator the power company rearranged some power lines and I was suddenly no longer at the end of my particular transmission line. Anyway, it is a HUGE pain to fire up the generator every now and then just to exercise it. I used to be diligent and would start it up twice a year to let it come up to operating temperature, but, I haven't even touched the thing in about 5 years now. Other stuff is piled on top of it and it's crammed into a corner of the barn that isn't easy to get to. I figure that the next time I need it I'll have to jump through some hoops to get it fired up. The last couple times I did fire it up I had to jump start it since the battery has been dead for a LONG time. Recently I've been thinking very seriously about selling it and getting a PTO generator.

IIRC, the last time I actually used it was when the wife bought a whole bunch of flower bulbs. The generator is on wheels so I pulled it all over the yard to power a half-inch drill with a bulb-auger attachment to plant hundreds of flower bulbs.*



* I can hear my dear old pappy now, "Son, I don't believe I woulda told that one."



.

That is what happened to my last generator. I fired it up every 6 months for a couple of years, then every year and then every emergency which seems to be about every 4 to 5 years. I believe that PTO generators will accept this type of abuse better than a cheap gas engine full of bad ethanol. They say the heavy gear oil should be changed annually but back in the day a lot of manual transmissions used this oil and they would go several years and tens of thousands of miles between transmission oil changes.